Voice of the Earth and Space Science Community

At the American Geophysical Union meeting this past week in San Francisco, I was thrilled to be one of 20 people selected to attend a NASA Social. Formerly called NASA TweetUps, their Socials gather together fans of NASA (no prior science experience necessary) that follow NASA on their social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google+) to engage with NASA to witness the liftoff of a current mission, or in this case, to hear about the latest science discoveries at the AGU conference.

How did I know I wanted to participate in this event? My motivation was part fan-of-all-things-planetary, and part remembering Alexia Hudson’s experience from her White House Tweet-Up in 2011.

I think there can be an incredible benefit to attending and/or hosting a “Social” event. Not only does the event encourage a community of people to come together around a common theme to be “social” in person and then via online postings, but there in an incredible academic benefit to the new content that can be learned – in this case, for me, it was learning about past, present, and future NASA missions, and how NASA science relates to Earth processes and human life on our own planet.

I hope I have the opportunity to participate in another Social in the future. I know there are many students on my campus that have Twitter accounts, and I wonder how they would receive a thematic social event at Penn State Brandywine…

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About Laura

Laura Guertin is a Professor of Earth Science at Penn State Brandywine in Media, PA. Her research focuses on how technology can enhance teaching and student learning in introductory-level geoscience courses for non-science majors. Her blog focuses on geoscience education/outreach, science communication, and technology tools in the classroom, online, and in the field.